Q: Can the Amiga Forever ROM and operating system files be used
on a non-emulated Amiga?

DISCUSSION

A: Technically, while
many files which are part of Amiga Forever
may work on non-emulated Amiga hardware,
some files will not. Out of more than 30 ROM files
that are included in Amiga Forever Plus
Edition as of this writing, very few (i.e. the 3.X series)
require an emulation environment. The
original technical limitation was in part a
legacy of a 1997 wish by some licensors that
Amiga Forever not compete with the sale of
"real" upgrade ROMs for Amiga computers. The
limitation was implemented by using some
"illegal opcodes", support for which was
added to the UAE and Fellow emulation
projects in 1997. The limitation was later
removed. For example, Amiga
Forever Plus Edition now includes the full
set of original and
WHDLoad-compatible ROMs. There is no
technical limitation involving disk-based OS
files.

The various ROM and
operating system files which are
included in the PC and Mac versions of Amiga Forever were originally licensed (in the Amiga
Forever EULA) for specific use in the
context of Amiga emulation on Windows, macOS and Linux systems. In a later review of the Amiga Forever
agreements, it was confirmed that the Amiga
ROM and OS files may be used for "providing
support for developers and users of the
Amiga OS and Amiga applications".
Accordingly, the Amiga Forever EULA was
clarified to also allow use of the
software as a backup copy for the ROM and OS
software originally provided on "Classic
Amiga" computers (i.e. models from the original
Amiga 1000 up to the Amiga 4000 series,
which already came with a ROM and an OS disk
set). As a standard PC would have no way of
writing a floppy disk which an Amiga could use to boot, the
creation of a bootable disk from the Amiga
Forever disk images would itself require a
working Amiga computer, or another way to
write an Amiga disk.

We understand that you may have difficulties obtaining original
operating system floppy disks and other spare parts for your old
Amiga hardware, which was one of the main reasons for us to
provide Amiga Forever in the first place. As long as your Amiga
can boot, you can use the tools which are provided with Amiga
Forever to transfer all data to another computer on which Amiga
Forever is running, retaining your existing configuration, or
experiencing a "fresh" installation, which is included.

Files other than the ROM and OS files have
in part been licensed to us, and are licensed by us to end users, for
use in the context of Amiga emulation. Although these files may be
available for other uses as well, not all items have been
specifically licensed for such purposes as part of their
publication in Amiga Forever.